Declassified Documents Show Henry Kissinger's Major Role in the 1974 Initiative That Created the Nuclear Suppliers Group

Kissinger Favored Efforts to Curb Nuclear Proliferation in Concert with Other Powers, But Did Not Want U.S. to "Go Charging Around the World, Like Don Quixote"

State Department Advisers Warned That New Nuclear-armed Nations or "Even Subnational Groups" Could "Threaten the United States with Nuclear Violence," Which Would Require "Extensive and Costly Restructuring" of the U.S. Defense Posture

New Documents Disclose the Key Role of Non-NPT Signatory France in Making the NSG Possible But Also in Shaping Guidelines on Lowest Common Denominator Basis

Drawing upon the documents in this collection and other material is an article on the creation of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in the April 2014 issue of International History Review.
The article is part of a special issue, "The Origins of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime," edited by Roland Popp and Andreas Wenger (ETH Zurich). It
includes:

Dane Swango, "The United States and the Role of Nuclear Co-operation and Assistance in the Design of the Non-Proliferation Treaty."

Washington, D.C., April 21, 2014– Henry Kissinger played a slightly reluctant but nonetheless highly influential role in establishing the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in the mid-1970s,
motivated equally by concern about nuclear proliferation and a desire to keep U.S. officials from "charging around the world, like Don Quixote," according
to documents posted today by the National Security Archive and the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project. The newly declassified records also
describe France's cooperative role in establishing the NSG, despite French concerns to be seen as pursuing an independent policy on nonproliferation.

During the first months of 1975, when Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's State Department was working with other allies to organize the Nuclear Suppliers
Group, it was difficult to make headway with France, a key nuclear exporter which was reluctant to join the effort to regulate exports of sensitive nuclear
technology and materials. The French rejected the comprehensive nuclear safeguards that Washington favored because they "did not want to be accused of
acting with nuclear suppliers to gang up on non-NPT [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] parties and even some NPT countries." Reacting to the U.S. proposal
to regulate sensitive nuclear exports to unstable countries, French diplomats argued that it was on "dangerous ground" and that imposing such constraints
raised "political dangers." Nevertheless, the French had their own concerns about the spread of nuclear weapons capabilities and when Kissinger made
assurances, they came on board the NSG.

The Nuclear Suppliers Group has played a significant role in the history of the nonproliferation system since the 1970s, although the concerns raised by
the French indicate why it was a controversial project very early on. The shock created by the Indian "peaceful nuclear explosion" in May 1974 raised
questions about the safeguarding of sensitive nuclear technology. With growing competition for sales of nuclear reactors and equipment, U.S. government
officials worried about an emerging nuclear proliferation risk that could destabilize international relations and damage U.S. interests. Accordingly,
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger authorized a secret diplomatic process to create a high-level group that would establish criteria for preventing the
diversion of sensitive nuclear technology and materials into nuclear weapons production. Declassified U.S. government documents shed light on the U.S.
government role in the creation of the NSG during 1974-1975. The other founding members were governments on both sides of the Cold War line: Canada,
France, Japan, West Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union.

This summary, excerpted from document 13D, may have been prepared for Secretary Kissinger to give him background and the state-of-play on the discussions with the French on their participation in the suppliers group project. Corresponding French government records on these developments are unavailable. Under France's archive law, as of July 15, 2008, documents relating to nuclear matters were, for all intents and purpose, closed for research indefinitely.

Sometimes known as the "London Club," after the location of its headquarters, the purpose of the NSG has been to fill a gap in the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty (NPT) of 1968. The Treaty stipulated that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would provide safeguards for exports of nuclear supplies but
it did not create any arrangements for discouraging nuclear exporters from equipping non-nuclear weapons states with sensitive technology. Moreover, NPT
Article III covered exports of equipment but did not specify technology as such. Once the NPT had been ratified by many states, large and small, a Swiss
academic, Professor Claude Zangger, established a working group of nuclear exporters to develop a trigger list of supplies requiring safeguards. The
Zangger Committee, however, did not include technology in its trigger list. That, and France's non-membership — it had refused to sign the NPT — raised
diplomatic problems that the administration of President Gerald R. Ford had to resolve.

Among the documents in today's publication:

A "memcon" of Kissinger's conversation with Canadian Foreign Minister Mitchell Sharp after the Indian "peaceful nuclear explosion" in May 1974.
Canada had sold India the nuclear reactor that helped produce plutonium for the test, but Kissinger said that U.S. safeguards were also "lousy" (Washington
had made heavy water available to India)

A memorandum where Kissinger was given the choice of a "low visibility" meeting involving the "most advanced nuclear industrial states" or "a
larger, well publicized conference involving numerous other states" He chose the "more restrictive" option, probably to make the meeting more "manageable."

The initial U.S. proposal for nuclear suppliers' guidelines, including "special restraints" over exports of sensitive enrichment and reprocessing
technologies and "stringent" conditions where nuclear exports could exacerbate instability and conflict.

Records of U.S.-French bilateral meetings where French officials expressed fears of joining a "cartel" of nuclear "haves," being "isolated" at a
suppliers' conference, being "pressured to adopt unacceptable policies," or made to look like a "renegade" on nuclear proliferation issues.

A message to Kissinger expressing concern that news of a loosely safeguarded Brazilian-West German nuclear deal made it urgent to move forward with
a suppliers group which included the French, so that such problems could be discussed.

Messages between Kissinger and French Foreign Minister Jean Sauvagnargues, including Kissinger's commitment that suppliers group agreements would
be based on consensus, enabling France to join without fear of group pressures.

Memoranda on the Canadian-French controversy over "full scope safeguards," during which Washington stayed on the sidelines so as not to isolate the
French, who opposed full-scope as part of the NPT, which they had refused to sign.

The Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines, approved in fall 1975, which called for "restraint" in the transfer of sensitive technologies and regular
consultations between suppliers, including over "sensitive cases" to "ensure that transfer does not contribute to risks of conflict or instability, and
included a "trigger list" of items that would require safeguards by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

An assessment of the 1975 nuclear suppliers' guidelines, in which Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs George Vest wrote that
they "served to close many of the loopholes and inadequacies of previous nuclear cooperation agreements between suppliers and recipients," but could not
prevent "indigenous" development of nuclear weapons capabilities.

Secretary of State Kissinger meets with French President Valerie Giscard d'Estaing, over coffee and a plate of croissants, on 5 July 1974. The French government's support was critical to the success of the nuclear suppliers' project. Photo from Still Pictures Branch, National Archives, RG 59-BP, box 36.

Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs George Vest played a key role in the founding of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Photo from Still Pictures Branch, National Archives, RG 59-SO, box 18.

Assistant Secretary of State for Policy Planning Winston Lord, one of Kissinger's close advisers, encouraged support for the suppliers' group and other initiatives to curb nuclear proliferation. Photo from Still Pictures Branch, National Archives, RG 59-SO, box 10.

Convincing France to participate in the suppliers group was a central problem; the French had refused to sign the NPT but were becoming more concerned
about the spread of nuclear capabilities. Yet, as noted, they were also concerned about appearances — that governments without a nuclear infrastructure
would see the suppliers group as a "cartel" designed to keep them down. Indeed, this became a significant objection to the Nuclear Suppliers' Group over
the years. Nevertheless, from the U.S. standpoint, French involvement in the project was crucial because the Japanese and West Germans were unlikely to
join without the French. After the French government had assented, the suppliers group began meeting although it would operate on a "lowest common
denominator" basis in order to keep France from being "isolated" on key issue such as full-scope safeguards. Pre-existing agreements on sensitive cases
(e.g., Brazil-West Germany or Pakistan-France) remained subjects of bilateral discussions.

The Nuclear Suppliers Group started out, and remains, an essentially voluntary international organization. From the outset, its guidelines did not have the
force of international law and depended on action by the member states to observe and implement them. Nevertheless, the NSG became an important and
enduring institution in the nuclear nonproliferation system, supplementing and supporting both the NPT and the IAEA.[1]

During 1976, the NSG expanded membership to broaden support for its objectives. Nevertheless, in 1978, it stopped meeting because of internal differences
over the next steps, such as the role of full-scope safeguards. The guidelines, which became public in 1978 when the IAEA published them, served as a
reference tool for nuclear export policies, but Washington pressed the other NSG members to tacitly expand the trigger list by seeking prohibitions of
specific dual-use exports bound for nuclear programs in such countries as Pakistan. It was not until the 1990 Gulf War, when the West discovered the extent
of Iraq's nuclear program, that a consensus developed for tougher nuclear export controls. In this context, the NSG began meeting again and expanded its
membership further. It also adopted full-scope safeguards, but years later granted India an exception that haunts the nonproliferation regime.[2]

That the NSG emerged when it did and in the form it took was due in part to Henry Kissinger's role, not least his success in securing French involvement.
Yet, as an NSG founding father, Kissinger barely discusses nonproliferation, much less the Group's creation, in his three volumes of memoirs. With his
focus on U.S-Soviet crises and diplomacy, SALT I and II, the wars in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and normalization of relations with China, perhaps he
sees the NSG as rather small change. Moreover, Kissinger may have found writing about nonproliferation issues somewhat tricky. He and President Richard
Nixon had been dismissive of the NPT, but Kissinger changed course during 1974-1975 and that would have to be explained. Moreover, nonproliferation policy
during the 1960s and 1970s cannot be discussed without tackling sensitive questions such as the Israeli nuclear program and why Kissinger had acquiesced in
it, in contrast to taking a more activist approach to check Pakistani nuclear plans during 1975-1976. Perhaps, Kissinger concluded that this was one issue
that resisted his strong interest in using memoirs and other writings to justify his record of diplomacy.

THE DOCUMENTS

B: National Security Decision Memorandum 255, Henry Kissinger to Secretary of Defense et al., "
Security and Other Aspects of the Growth and Dissemination of Nuclear Power Industries," 3 June 1974, Secret

Before the Indian test, an interagency NSC sub-committee was exploring the problem of safeguards for sensitive nuclear exports. The problem was that an
existing group, the Zangger Committee based on NPT membership, did not have a broad enough membership or scope to manage the problem. It had developed a
trigger list of nuclear supplies that required IAEA safeguards but the list did not include reprocessing or enrichment technologies because NPT article III
only covered supplies, not technology. Toward this end, the Under Secretaries Committee proposed "talks with other suppliers of technology and equipment in
the reprocessing and enrichment fields on desirable new constraints or guidelines that should be followed."

One problem that the report brought up was that France did not belong to the Zangger Committee. This raised the possibility that "suppliers may not adhere
to the Committee's recommendations if there is serious concern that France will undercut them by selling Trigger List items, without safeguards, to
[non-nuclear weapons states] not party to the NPT." The Under Secretaries hoped that France could be persuaded to follow the Zangger Committee's
recommendations, but this was a diplomatic problem that would require higher level intervention.

After the Indian test, the agencies moved forward in developing an action plan on the nuclear supply problem and related issues which Henry Kissinger
signed off on in NSDM 255. Among other measures, Kissinger endorsed consultations with suppliers to establish "common principles regarding the supply of
sensitive enrichment technology or equipment" and encouraging multinational frameworks for "enrichment, fuel fabrication, and reprocessing facilities."
Through multinational arrangements, it would be possible to discourage the proliferation of national nuclear enrichment and reprocessing plants.

Source: National Archives and Records Administration, Department of State Records, Record Group 59 [RG 59], records of Henry A. Kissinger, 1973-1977
[hereinafter Kissinger records], box 8, June 1974 Nodis Memcons, also on Digital National Security Archive

Canada's safeguards had failed to prevent India from converting spent fuel from the CANDU reactor into plutonium. Kissinger acknowledged to Canadian
Foreign Minister Mitchell Sharp that U.S. safeguards had also proven to be "lousy," failing to prevent India from using U.S.-supplied heavy water for its
nuclear activities. Sharp asked Kissinger how the proliferation of nuclear technology could be prevented and what should be said to the Argentines and the
Egyptians, who were also seeking to use nuclear energy. But Kissinger evidently had no answer.

Also encouraging interest in a close look at nuclear export policy were negotiations, pre-dating the Indian test, over nuclear reactor sales to Israel,
Egypt, and Iran. Chairing the meeting in Kissinger's absence, Under Secretary of State Joseph Sisco expressed dismay that nuclear nonproliferation had lost
high-level support during the Nixon administration.

Near the end of a discussion of non-proliferation policy with British Foreign Secretary James Callaghan [pages 16-18], Kissinger realized he needed to
tackle the problem of nuclear exports and asked his aide, Helmut Sonnenfeldt, to arrange a staff meeting.

Prepared by Jerome Kahan and Charles Van Doren, respectively with the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,
this report provided a comprehensive take on the problem of nuclear proliferation and the state of U.S. nonproliferation policy. Among the specific issues
reviewed were the status of the NPT, export control issues, the problem of "peaceful nuclear explosions," the implications of the Indian test, and
long-term steps for controlling the proliferation of nuclear capabilities. The authors saw a compelling security requirement: "The basis for our
non-proliferation interest is the assessment that the danger of nuclear war as well as world instability would significantly increase with an unrestrained
spread of nuclear weapons." Moreover, the proliferation of nuclear capabilities would give nations a "'sense of greater independence, thus complicating
international diplomacy and diminishing American influence." Finally, new nuclear-armed nations or "even subnational groups" could "threaten the United
States with nuclear violence," which would require "extensive and costly restructuring" of the U.S. defense posture.

Creating a forum for nuclear exporters to develop common policies was a major recommendation, but the paper on controls over nuclear exports pointed to a
significant problem: "The greatest potential obstacle to effective export controls in the nuclear field has been the lack of cooperation by France." On 12
July Kissinger met with his staff to discuss these issues. No record of the meeting has surfaced, but a few weeks later Policy Planning Staff Director
Winston Lord reminded Kissinger: "Last time we agreed in principle that there was something you could do about this problem, it wasn't hopeless" [See
document 7].

To help Kissinger prepare for a follow-up discussion, ACDA and State Department officials prepared a "Non-Proliferation: Strategy and Action Program" to
help guide policy. An important proposal was for "high level political approaches to key exporting countries to enlist their support for safeguarding
transfers of nuclear materials." While Washington had to approach a number of nuclear exporters, consultations with France "constitute the most crucial and
urgent step to be taken." In light of France's status as a significant nuclear supplier but an NPT hold-out, the problem was convincing the French that
cooperation was in their interest. They would not want the proliferation of nuclear capabilities to erode their status as a nuclear power, nor would they
favor the proliferation of enrichment capabilities that would undermine their own investments in enrichment facilities. Moreover, Washington had leverage
as a supplier of HEU to France. This was an "urgent matter."

Kissinger presided over an important staff meeting in early August where he made a decision to go ahead with the suppliers' project, beginning with
approaches to Moscow and Paris. While noting that the U.S., as a sponsor of the NPT, had a "special responsibility" to curb nuclear proliferation,
Kissinger did not believe that it had a unique responsibility: "The fact of the matter is that there is no nuclear country whose nuclear capability will
threaten us before it threatens fifty other countries." Kissinger observed that he had a "reluctance to have the United States go charging around the
world, like Don Quixote, for every conceivable problem … when there are other countries whose interest in it ought to be even greater." Washington
had to work with other countries and have them "share some of the responsibility." Nevertheless, "we will still wind up in a leading position." He wanted
an approach made to Moscow; further, because of France's importance, "I might want to talk quietly to the French and tell them what is coming. And if they
have an overwhelming desire for preliminary bilateral talks with us, maybe we will do it." He wanted to "think through how to do this."

Document 8:
Memorandum to the Secretary of State from Fred Ikle and Winston Lord, "U.S. Policy on Nuclear Proliferation," 26 August 1974, with 29 November 1974
cover memorandum, Secret

Source: PPS, box 348, Nov. 1974

While U.S. nonproliferation strategy focused on several problems, such as ratification of the NPT by key countries, interest in a conference of major
nuclear suppliers solidified. According to Kissinger's advisers, "A conference of nuclear industrial states offers an opportunity for realizing a
coordinated approach in placing effective controls, including safeguards and security measures, over transfers of commercial nuclear equipment and
materials." When given the choice of a "low visibility" meeting involving the "most advanced nuclear industrial states," and a larger, well publicized
conference involving numerous other states, Kissinger chose the "more restrictive" option, probably to "enhance both the manageability of the conference
and the prospects for reaching consensus among the current major suppliers."

Documents 9A-C: Bringing the Soviets In

A: Memorandum to the Secretary of State from Lord and Ikle, "Consultations with the Soviets on Non-Proliferation Strategy,"18 September 1974, Secret

B: Memorandum to the Secretary of State from "Talks on Reactor Safeguards and Related Matters with the Soviets on October 15," 5 October 1974

The Soviet Union was not yet a major nuclear exporter, but they had potential and as a major co-sponsor of the NPT had followed nonproliferation norms in
their nuclear dealings. Kissinger and his advisers took it for granted that Moscow should be involved in a suppliers' project at the outset although they
were not sure how the Soviets would react to being the only Communist state in a group of U.S. allies. Washington could lessen this problem by assuring
Moscow that the initial group would be the "nucleus" of a larger grouping that could include Soviet allies.

Once Kissinger approved an approach, State Department officials prepared the substance of communications with Moscow, which included a basic five-point
paper (See document 9B, Tab B) constituting proposed "undertakings" for a suppliers' group. The proposed guidelines for nuclear exporters included no
"peaceful nuclear explosives" for non-nuclear states, IAEA safeguards for nuclear supplies, and "special restraints" over exports of sensitive
enrichment and reprocessing technologies, including comprehensive safeguards and multinational plants. Moreover, for regions where nuclear exports
could exacerbate instability and conflict, suppliers would agree to "stringent" conditions. On 17 October 1974, the State Department took the first
step to bringing the Soviets in by sending a telegram about the project to the embassy in Moscow.

Document 10: Memorandum from Winston Lord, Fred Iklé, and Helmut Sonnenfeldt to the Secretary, "Follow-up with French on Nuclear Export
Controls,"17 October 1974, Secret

Source: PPS, box 369, WL Sensitive Non-China

With an approach to the Soviets already in the works, Kissinger's top advisers emphasized the importance of a parallel approach to the French, given their
centrality to the prospects for a suppliers' group. While no one could be sure whether the French would abandon their "case-by-case" approach to nuclear
exports, the advisers believed that the French disliked nuclear proliferation and wished to remain the only nuclear weapons state in Western Europe.
Moreover, their dependency on U.S. HEU for their civilian nuclear program might reinforce their interest in strengthening U.S.-French relations. By
mid-October 1974, the French were giving signals that they were open to dialogue on export controls but the advisers believed that an approach to Paris was
becoming more urgent in light of recent intelligence that Paris was signing contracts on nuclear export deals, probably a reference to Pakistan and South
Korea.

Kissinger agreed that in his absence Acting Secretary of State Robert Ingersoll and ACDA Director Fred Iklé should meet with French
Ambassador Kosciusko-Morizet and that the British, Germans, and Canadians should receive copies of the five-point paper, and also be informed of the
approaches to the French and the Soviets.

In the course of a background paper on the nuclear proliferation problem and policy options, the State Department updated the White House on the state of
play of the nuclear suppliers' initiative: the British, the Canadians, and the Soviets had agreed to attend a meeting; the Germans would agree "if all key
suppliers" (France) accepted; and the Japanese, who had also been asked, had not responded. The French had not given an answer and bilateral discussions
would take place to go over the issues.

Documents 13A-E: Bringing the French In

A: Memorandum to the Deputy Secretary from Winston Lord, "Next Steps for the Nuclear Suppliers' Conference," 16 January 1975, with memoranda attached,
secret

Some months of secret talks were required for Kissinger and his advisers to persuade the French government to attend the preliminary suppliers' meeting in
London in April 1975. Not knowing that French President Valerie Giscard d'Estaing had become more worried about nuclear proliferation and more interested
in trying to curb it, U,S. officials were pleased to learn that the French had moved "closer … to responsible behavior" on nuclear exports. President
Ford began the process by asking d'Estaing, during the Martinique summit in December 1974, to approve French participation in a suppliers' group. While the
French were generally receptive because they did not want to be "isolated," they nevertheless wanted to chart their own course in developing
nonproliferation policy.

It took some wrangling over a variety of issues, including the five U.S. points, which the French did not fully accept, to get them involved in a
suppliers' project. After French officials observed that what would emerge would "be the least common denominator," State Department Politico-Military
Affairs Director George Vest acknowledged that was "the nature of such activities." Compromises or not, Vest and his colleagues wanted to move forward.
Adding urgency to getting the French involved was growing U.S. concern that West German safeguards for the sale of nuclear technology to Brazil were too
loose. If the French did not participate, neither would the West Germans. To ensure French involvement, Kissinger wrote Foreign Minister Jean Sauvagnargues
that he saw enough "common understanding" on important issues to provide a basis for French participation. He assured Sauvagnargues that he did not want
any of the "major suppliers to be isolated" and that there was a need for consensus and" harmonization" on policy.

In reply the French foreign minister asked for assurances and recognition that French concessions were the "limits of our possibilities." For example,
agreement should be by consensus, no decisions would be retroactive (that is, not apply to contracts that the French had already signed), and meetings
should be confidential. On 18 April, Kissinger met with the French ambassador and provided the necessary assurances, which he wrote up in a letter to
Sauvagnargues not long before the suppliers met in London on 25 April. Kissinger shaped the future of the NSG by writing that agreements would be based on
consensus, decisions would not be retroactive, and the suppliers meetings would be "informal and confidential." This arrangement assured that the
suppliers' group would operate on a lowest-common-denominator basis, but there was no choice because French participation was vital.

State Department records of the April meeting in London have yet to surface in the archives, but the gist of what happened can be parsed out from other
documents. So can the results of a follow-up meeting in mid-June 1975. The U.S. delegation agreed to develop a policy paper that would take into account
French and other views so as to reach agreement on the most "stringent" safeguards possible. A central but divisive issue was whether safeguards should
apply to the entire nuclear fuel cycle (later known as "full-scope" safeguards). Another issue was whether multinational auspices for reprocessing and
enrichment plants should be mandatory or a matter of discretion by a supplier country. On these matters and others, the French position was central.

[Note: Drawing on the declassified record, the editor has filled in many of the country names deleted by State Department reviewers from document A.]

The September 1975 meeting of the suppliers' group brought out a conflict over a decisive issue, whether supplying countries should require recipient
countries to place all nuclear facilities under safeguards or require them only for the technology and supplies at issue in the contract ("project
safeguards"). The Canadians strongly supported the former, "full scope safeguards" (their terminology, which caught on), which the French saw as
"tantamount to imposing NPT obligations" — a reference to the Treaty's Article III — which they would not accept. Washington had included the substance of
full-scope safeguards in the original five-point paper but Kissinger would not go against the French and risk the hard-won understanding that had brought
them into the group. A recently declassified telegram (document 15B) illuminates the U.S. -French dialogue over safeguards and other provisions in the
nuclear suppliers' guidance. Arguing that full-scope safeguards was "alien to [their] philosophy," the French suggested that a "traditional interpretation
of the contamination principle (i.e., requiring safeguards on any materials produced in exported facilities)," would make it possible to achieve "the
practical equivalent" of the Canadian proposal.

Ottawa relented but an interesting and sometimes confused conversation between Kissinger and Prime Minister Pierre-Elliot Trudeau suggested the latter was
still interested in full-scope safeguards. Kissinger might not have been sure what Trudeau meant: "an effort must be made," he said, even though Washington
was not supporting Ottawa on this point. Trudeau highlighted an important problem: the "role of crass business interests" which see the proliferation
problem as "insoluble" and therefore press to "go ahead on a business basis."

The first part of document 16A comprises the instructions which the White House approved for the September 1975 suppliers' meeting. That event led to
another meeting in early November where the parties hammered out a set of guidelines — marching orders for the suppliers' future decisions. The British
tried to work out a compromise on full-scope safeguards, but that proved acceptable to none; the best that could be achieved was French agreement to future
consideration of full-scope. Another contested issue was a U.S. proposal for mandatory supplier involvement in enrichment and reprocessing facilities, but
that met strong opposition and was made nonbinding.

At the November meeting, the suppliers completed negotiations on guidelines. The final agreement, George Vest wrote Kissinger, "served to close many of the
loopholes and inadequacies of previous nuclear cooperation agreements between suppliers and recipients." It also put the French and West Germans on record
to restrict access to sensitive nuclear technologies. Nevertheless, as Vest noted, the guidelines would not prevent "indigenous" development of nuclear
capabilities and "unsafeguarded developments" or the acquisition of sensitive technology.

The guidelines did not constitute an international agreement but a set of "common policies" that each government would implement accordingly. Basic
provisions included agreement to seek assurances by recipients of supplies not to produce nuclear explosive devices, physical security for installations
and materials, transfer of trigger list items only under IAEA safeguards, restraint in the transfer of sensitive technologies, facilities and materials,
and the encouragement of supplier involvement in, and multinational controls over, sensitive installations. Moreover, suppliers would conduct regular
consultations over "sensitive cases" to "ensure that transfer does not contribute to risks of conflict or instability."

Appended to the guidelines was a two-page "trigger list" based on the Zangger Committee's list, with detailed explanations of items requiring safeguards,
from fissile materials to nuclear reactors to "non-nuclear materials for reactors," such as heavy water, deuterium, and enrichment and reprocessing
technology/equipment. The latter included, for example, gas centrifuge technology and "know-how" needed to operate a gas centrifuge plant.

Not included in the trigger list was dual-use equipment and technology. This problem was understood at the time and it surfaced with a vengeance during
1978-79 when British officials discovered the A. Q. Khan network's attempts to purchase inverters needed to operate gas centrifuge enrichment machines.

To develop broader support for the NSG's mission, the original members expanded their numbers in 1976 to include more Western and Soviet bloc countries as
well as one Cold War neutral. The new members were Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, East Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Most
old and new members were receptive when Washington lobbied them to support a "long term and stable regime of restraint" on the export of sensitive
enrichment and reprocessing technology. While the French were supportive of the moratorium proposal, the West Germans were uncomfortable with it, not least
because of the implications for their deal with Brazil.

With the Carter administration in power in 1977, nuclear nonproliferation policy had greater precedence than under Ford and, reversing the approach that
Kissinger had taken, U.S. diplomats lobbied for NSG endorsement of full-scope safeguards. While full-scope had wide support in the group, both the French
and the West Germans remained opposed. The Carter administration tried to persuade the French but they were worried about being "isolated' in the group and
talked about withdrawing or opposing further meetings because the NSG had "fully achieved" its objectives. Washington persuaded Paris not to withdraw, but
the group's future was plainly uncertain.

At the September 1977 meeting, the NSG agreed to make the guidelines available to the IAEA so that it could publish them. The State Department had been
reluctant to publish them, not least because they did not include full-scope safeguards, but overriding that was an interest in dispelling Third World
concerns about a "secret cartel." In February 1978, soon after the IAEA had received the guidelines, it made them a public record
matter.

NOTES

[1]
For useful studies, see Ian Anthony, Christer Ahlström, and Vitaly Fedchenko, Reforming Nuclear Export Controls: The Future of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), as well as Peter van
Ham, Managing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regimes in the 1990s: Power, Politics, and Policies (New York: Royal Institute of International
Affairs/Council on Foreign Relations, 1994).